Future Food Quick Bites: Ham Sammies, Vegan Burrata & Cultivated Chicken
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Project Eaden’s vegan ham sandwich, Julienne Bruno’s return, and the UK government’s U-turn on novel foods.
New products and launches
German whole-cut plant-based meat startup Project Eaden has incorporated its sliced ham alternative into a sandwich sold under its consumer brand Lekka, which contains 16g of protein and is available in over 1,000 Rewe stores.
Also in Germany, discount retailer Lidl has launched a blended beef mince combining meat with pea protein from local firm BiGuPro. It’s €1 cheaper than conventional beef, and follows a similar move by Rewe Group this month.
Danish mycelium meat startup Tempty Foods has rolled out its Spicy Korean Stick SKU across all 7-Eleven stores in Sweden.
Months after being acquired out of administration by The Compleat Food Group’s Harvey & Brockless, British artisan vegan cheese brand Julienne Bruno is re-entering the market with its stracciatella, burrata and ricotta alternatives. They’ll be available on Ocado from April 30.
UK dairy-free chocolate maker Nomo has relaunched its Bounty-style toasted coconut bar, available at Sainsbury’s stores this month for £1.50. A nationwide rollout is slated for September.
Still in the UK, Veganuary and Vegan Food Group co-founder Matthew Glover has kicked off Project Slingshot, an initiative to “make factory farming indefensible”. Its first campaign will feature ads on the London Underground, spread across more than 200 stations and 2,200 tube carriages.
Plus, plant-based startup Grubby has added seven new options to its frozen ready-meal range, launched last year after acquiring Allplants’ recipe IP. These include sticky teriyaki udon noodles, a harissa tofu Buddha bowl, a lentil ragu with rigatoni, and a tofu-cashew carbonara.
Australian innovator Fable has notched a UK retail listing for its tender pulled shiitake mushrooms with Waitrose, which will begin selling the product on May 6 for £3.99.
Famed restaurant group Löwengrube has embraced plant proteins with new dishes featuring Planted‘s meat alternatives, including several Bavarian classics, steak, and nuggets, at its 20+ locations across Italy.
Across the Atlantic, Oatly has introduced its matcha latte, organic barista milk, and a four-ingredient oat milk in Canada, where its sales grew by 22% over the last 12 weeks.
Vegan restaurant chain Tacotarian and dairy-free brand Klimon have partnered to dish out Mexican favourites and a Churro Chata ice cream sandwich at the Sick New World music festival in Las Vegas (April 25).
Cultivated meat startup Upside Foods served its chicken at the Baldor Bite event by Baldor Specialty Foods in New York City on April 21.
Singaporean bean-free coffee maker Prefer has expanded its partnership with Ajinomoto, launching its iced black coffee and lattes at department store Isetan Scotts. The canned drinks have also been launched at indoor playground Kiztopia Group.
Fellow Singaporean food tech startup Coa & Co, meanwhile, is debuting its three-strong range of plant-based protein chocolates in Australia.
And in New Zealand, dairy-free company Raglan Food Co has launched protein-boosted Greek-style coconut yoghurts in natural, berry, and vanilla flavours. They contain around 6g of fava bean protein per 100g serving.
Company, finance and policy developments
US sweet protein startup Oobli has teamed up with the biochemicals unit of Latin American sugar giant Magdalena to establish a manufacturing and development hub for its precision-fermented sweetener and expand its footprint in the Andean region.
Dutch precision fermentation startup Vivici has incorporated Danish firm Enduro‘s genetic performance enhancement platform, Enduro Sense, into its beta-lactoglobulin production strain. It delivered a 30% increase in production titers and yields with the same amount of feedstock.
David Protein has increased the manufacturing capacity of plant-based fat alternative, esterified propoxylated glycerol (EPG), by fivefold. It’s planning a foray into ice creams and launches at Walmart and Target, and predicts revenues to surpass $300M this year.
Terraferma, the parent company of vegan cat food brand Ten Lives, has improved the efficiency of its yeast strain, Pichia pistoris, which is now over 90 times better than the off-the-shelf strain it started with. It’s now looking for partners to incorporate the yeast in a range of applications.
Dietary supplement company Herbalife has teamed up with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras to establish India’s first Centre of Excellence focused on plant cell fermentation technology.
British meat-free brand The Tofoo Co has rebranded to Tofoo & Co to better reflect its portfolio of plant-based protein products beyond just tofu.
The University of Hohenheim has received €1.1M in funding from the European Regional Development Fund to develop a scalable bioreactor platform for cellular agriculture as part of the CATALIST project.
Clarisse Beurrier, co-founder and CTO of Cellcraft, an AI platform for cellular agriculture scale-up, has been named in the social impact category of Forbes‘s 30 Under 30 Europe list for 2026.
The UK’s cultivated meat boom is set to be quashed by the government’s move to realign with EU single market rules, which will reverse the Food Standards Agency‘s (FSA) efforts to fast-track regulatory approval for novel foods.
Finally, media company William Reed‘s Rethink Events has paused the Chicago chapter of the Future-Food Tech conference “following a strategic review of our global events portfolio and the evolving needs of the market”.
Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.